


Breathe Again

by Patcho418



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, RWBY Volume 8 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:02:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27667198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patcho418/pseuds/Patcho418
Summary: Written after RWBY V8E3 'Strings'.*Sometimes it's so much easier to suppress your feelings than to acknowledge them.Often it's better to acknowledge them before it's too late.
Relationships: Lie Ren/Nora Valkyrie
Comments: 14
Kudos: 62





	Breathe Again

_Thump._

Ren’s heart hammers against his chest, resonating in his ears.

_Thump._

His fingers curl into his palm, tightening until his knuckles turn white and his nails peel skin.

_Thump._

He fights off frightened tears stinging the corners of his eyes, fights back the lump forming in his throat, puts everything he feels to his very core where he’ll never have to see it. Feel it.

The last thing he heard about Nora was that she was hurt.

Under his breath, he curses his own temperance, berates the actions he’d taken that he was sure were the right call - actions he’d followed through on with so much conviction, so much bitter righteousness. His frustrations take root deep in his core, twisting like branches that spread through his veins-

“Breathe,” he commands himself, and the branches still. “Breathe,” he repeats, and the branches recede.

Still, between breaths he shakes, and between heartbeats he wonders if she’s okay, if there’s anything he could’ve done to help her had he joined their mission. While he doesn’t regret having helped the people of Mantle, he surely does regret splitting from her and not being there when she was hurt. There must’ve been some way he could’ve helped. If only he could be in two places at once.

(The branches twist again, and he laments how his heart can be so split.)

“Breathe.”

Ren approaches the Happy Huntress’ makeshift infirmary: a large tent in the crater where volunteers tend to civilians wounded by the Grimm. He can feel the anguish the moment he steps into the room as if it were a wall, thick and dense and so much harder to push through without another verbal reminder to calm himself down. It usually helps with other peoples’ pain, too.

His eyes fall upon various faces as he searches for Nora, recognizing Oscar and Weiss’ older sister but hardly recognizing them in his fervor. There’s so much pain here, and if he can only focus on one pain then it won’t overwhelm him so easily.

Of course, he takes another breath. That’s a pain he won’t be focusing on any time soon.

He sees Nora on a cot, barely conscious with a wool blanket pulled snug over her. From this distance, he tries to catch sight of any obvious wounds, but his search is cut off by Weiss, who stands from the end of Nora’s cot.

“I don’t think Nora wants to see you right now,” she says, stern and cold with her brow set and her arms crossed. Any other day, he’d acquiesce to Weiss Schnee; today, perhaps, he’s feeling just a little bit bolder.

Before he can protest, however, Nora shuffles behind her, sitting up slightly. Her eyes sink with exhaustion, her skin pale, and his jaw clenches when he sees the patterns of scorched red skin that mark her neck. 

“It’s okay, Weiss,” Nora rasps, attempting a weak smile to ease the tension, though the sight of her not even being able to smile so fully doesn’t help settle Ren’s heart any more.

Weiss glares at him with an indignant pout but lets out a huff of acknowledgement, blowing a few white strands from her face and traipses away. Ren hardly watches her go, instead focused on Nora. He focuses on the teal in her eyes that’s always settled any nerves roiling inside him. He focuses on her smile, only slightly warmer than before. He focuses on anything but the way his body writhes and twists within, threatening to collapse at any moment with doubts and fears stuck between every calming breath.

“Nora,” he says simply. It’s all he can bring himself to say right now.

Nora heaves a leaden sigh and sits up further; Ren rushes to her side to brace her, but is struck again by the sight of those horrible red marks, stretching across her shoulders and down her arms right to her fingers, where they coil around her like flashes of lightning branded into her skin.

His hand hovers barely inches from her shoulder, and Nora carefully closes the distance. He can feel the caution in the way she trembles, in the way her heart slows in anticipation. He can’t help but wonder if this is what he’s done to her, if her caution is not based in her injuries.

“I guess I’ve looked better, huh?” Nora jokes, and the sweetness of her voice settles into Ren’s breath.

“You said it, not me,” he responds lightly. It’s not a tone he’s quite used to, bue with Nora he can never hide it. Still, levity quickly gives way to anger, regret, shame, and the sweetness in his lungs is overtaken by numbness as he tells himself yet again to breathe. 

His thumb skates lightly along the raised skin of one of the scars, timid and remorseful. “How did this happen, Nora?”

Nora grimaces as she lifts her shoulders in a weak shrug, clearly bound by the pain. “Crazy Thursday. We don’t have to talk about it, though. I know you’re not big on talking.”

There’s vitriol laced in those words, faint but present, and Ren pulls away slightly. His brow furrows at the comment, and though he can’t deny the truth in it, it still stings in a familiar and devastating way.

His hand splays against her back, static and unsure. There are so many things he probably could say to her, but his words feel blocked behind a barrier, too thick to reach through and too well-crafted to break down. He’s never been a wordsmith, instead preferring to let his actions speak louder, and yet now he can’t muster the courage to find either the right actions or the right words.

“Breathe,” he says.

Nora frowns. “Don’t do that, Ren.”

Ren stops and cocks an eyebrow at her all while those roots slowly creep under his skin again. “Don’t do what?”

“Don’t push yourself down,” she pleads. “You’ll only hurt yourself more.”

“Me? You’re the one who’s injured!” It comes out in a burst, shaky and strained, and he immediately regrets it when his breath comes back to him. This is how it always ends up, with Nora trying to reach out to him, ignoring the ways she hurts to placate him, and him lashing out in response with some frustrations he’s too solemn to voice otherwise.

Nora’s gaze settles in his. Just by looking at her, her expression is indistinguishable, but he can sense upset in her, and he knows exactly why this time.

“I’m sorry,” he offers quietly, hoping his words don’t split her scars any further, don’t do more damage than she’s already sustained by so many including himself. “I’m just upset that you’re hurt. It scares me.”

Nora blinks and stays silent for a moment, though he can feel the way she begins to soften. She leans forward, coming into his space with a familiarity that’s been so foreign to them for so long, and he moves to support her, holding onto her shoulder with a sturdy hand.

“What else?” she asks.

“What else what?”

“What else does it feel like?” She searches Ren’s eyes, barreling through that barrier that keeps his thoughts and his words at bay in the way only she knows how.

“It feels...shameful,” Ren admits, a confession spoken from his heart. “I said so many horrible things to you. If you hadn’t been okay....if something had happened to you…”

He can feel his lungs becoming shallow, desperate for breath as everything he fears putting forth grows from his core, but he anchors himself in the passionate teal of Nora’s gaze, letting her conviction draw those fears out in ways that feel just as much like breathing as it could.

She draws his roots out, sees them flourish into greenery as he confesses his fears and doubts and regrets one by one, denying his lungs and mind the controlled breaths he’s used for years as a crutch, as a mask. He speaks it all to her, laments her wounds and her sacrifice, growls at his own shortcomings and how he feels he should have handled them.

His confessions are met with a scowl from Nora, and he catches onto the pang of hurt that echoes inside her.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs as he wipes a stray tear from the corner of his eye. “I’m saying too much.”

“I think you’re saying enough, Ren,” Nora tells him, and he can so clearly see the way tears form in her own eyes. She must be in so much pain, but here she is letting him bare himself fully to her, like she always does. She’s never been quiet about how she feels, wearing her heart so proudly, so brazenly like a crest. A promise.

It doesn’t stop her from pouring that heart into others, and Ren thinks how tragically admirable a trait it is.

He traces his thumb along her shoulder again, a silent confession this time. A promise of his own, and not one he often gives out lightly. He sniffles and settles again into her gaze, and his lips tug into a faint smile to match her own.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Nora,” he says, one final admission from the bottom of his heart.

Nora accepts with a teasing smile. “Well, otherwise okay,” she jokes and it coaxes a small laugh from Ren that helps soften those tightly-wound roots. “Come to think of it, they kinda look badass!”

“That you do,” Ren agrees, and though the sight of her wounds might still cause him some pain, he can be sure that it’s a pain he’s able to share.

Maybe they both know pain, and that’s what keeps them together.

Or, maybe, they’re so used to working through that pain together, and the promise of getting to keep working through it for years to come is good enough for him right now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is my first time writing for Ren since last year, hopefully I got him right! As usual, I'd love to hear what you thought, and I'm usually taking constructive criticism (if it's worded nicely bc i'm a fragile binch)!


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